METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR MONITORING THE PERFORMANCE OF A CIRCUIT OPTIMIZATION TOOL

A method and apparatus for monitoring the performance of a circuit optimization tool. The present invention contemplates inserting a number of performance monitoring commands into selected ones of a number of optimization scripts, wherein selected ones of the performance monitoring commands provide a number of performance related results when executed. Thereafter, the number of optimization scripts may be executed to optimize the circuit design. The number of results provided by the performance monitoring commands may then be assembled and analyzed by the circuit designer to identify any performance related problems.